The democratic world seems to be coming up with a magic figure for the tenure of a high office. It is approximately eight years. Margaret Thatcher exceeded it by three years and had to be pushed out of office, as was Tony Blair who was two years over par. The Americans, whose love for organisation is well known, have institutionalised it to two 4-year terms for their president.
But the pushing process begins early; ask George W Bush. Till two years ago he could do no wrong. He led his country into an extraordinary adventure in Iraq and they voted him back to power in 2004 with a greater majority. He used the fiscal surpluses he inherited to pursue the conservatives’ favourite agenda — tax cuts — even after defence expenditure soared. He systematically undermined American civil liberties and the people seemed not to care.
Bush has already been condemned to the prison specially reserved for democratic politicians — irrelevance. Tony Blair is there, as are V.P. Singh, Inder Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Politics is a cruel profession. It takes a protagonist to unprecedented heights and then, without fear or favour, lets go of them. You can be a dictator like Stalin or a Mao, feared and adored in their lifetimes, but getting their comeuppance in history.
The high, and the let down, for politicians in the democratic system may not be as dramatic, but it must nevertheless be painful. In the United States, the process usually begins with a president’s last state of the union address. Last year around this time, when Bush delivered the address, the economy was doing well and the war badly. Poor Dubya, he got slammed for the war and little praise for the economy. This time, the war in Iraq is doing well and the economy on the brink of recession, and no one is talking about the war.
Iraq
He was a Teflon president till last November when his party lost its majority in the US Congress because of the war in Iraq. Given the iron control that the neocons retained on the system, it is more than likely that in the coming years the Bush “legacy” will be more about discovering the ways and means through which the President damaged and devalued the system, rather than the touted achievements. Last week, the Center of Public Integrity went through the process of counting the lies of his administration on the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction and concluded that it had lied on a grand total of 935 occasions in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Bush has sought to strike an uncharacteristically non-confrontationist tone in his latest state of the union address, hoping perhaps to use the next 51 weeks that he had to salvage something of a legacy. But his thrust still seems to be the “what’s in it for me” approach. Take the war in Iraq. Violence may be down, but anyone who believes that the addition of 20,000 soldiers changed things around in Iraq is living in cloud cuckoo land. The change has come by the creation of the 80,000 strong Sunni militia paid $300 per month by the US to police the Sunni-majority areas. As for the Shias, they run the government and are biding their time for Uncle Sam’s departure. What will happen to this militia when the US leaves, no doubt after Bush is well settled at his ranch in Crawford, Tx? No one knows. But one thing is clear, neither the Iraqi army, nor the national police are capable of providing security for the country that has been torn apart by a war of George W. Bush’s making.
Afghanistan
Typically, Bush has sought to use this last opportunity to push for institutionalising his tax cuts. The cuts, heavily weighted in favour of the rich, are supposed to produce a budget surplus by 2012 — the end of the next president’s first term. But the predictions do not take into account the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that currently cost some $200 billion per annum.
The US president has simply papered over the huge problems confronting the war in Afghanistan. They are not just those connected to fighting the resurgent Taliban and the deteriorating situation in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. They are related to the quarrels within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and its partners on the way the Afghan mission should be prosecuted, and the contribution of the nations involved. As it is, only the British, Canadians and Dutch, along with the Americans, permit their troops to fight. The others focus on “reconstruction”. Yet if there was a single issue that was to define the Bush Administration it was the “war on terror”; but the struggle in Afghanistan indicates that it is far from being won, leave alone fought with any degree of effectiveness.
The problem for Bush, and for the rest of the world, is that the American voter has moved on and is focusing on the coming presidential poll. As of now the election is wide open. We are not sure as to who would be the Democratic and Republican candidates, and circumstances could actually take the race to the summer when the delegates elected at the primaries will formally vote for their respective candidate in party conventions. Predicting what way the election will play out is even more confounding because different outcomes could be suggested with different pairs of contestants.
But certain consequences of the Bush presidency are becoming evident. According to the Economist, “the proportion of Americans who think their country should be active in the world is the lowest it has been since the early 1990s.” This is bad news. Someone recently pointed out that we have reached an era where when America sneezes the world does not catch a cold. But if the turbulence in the world economy is anything to go by, the sneeze still has the ability to generate the shivers.
But the bigger problem the world will face from an isolationist America is that of managing the world system. In an alternative world, Bush should have led the world to an era where the United Nations could fulfill its mandate of maintaining world peace and directed the efforts to combat climate change. But that and other possibilities were wantonly destroyed by Bush’s policies.
Countries like India need to reflect on a US that is less attentive to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A facile view can be that with the big bad Americans back in their own country things will work just fine. But that is simply not true. There may be 25 NATO allies and 15 partner countries involved in Afghanistan. But more than half of the 53,000 troops there are American, as is the overwhelming portion of the air and naval effort.
Renewal
The US has been an interfering busy-body ever since they became the world’s hegemonistic power. But when it comes to crises — be it in Burma, Kenya, Darfur or Pakistan —the world looks to the US for leadership. The contrast with the rising role of China cannot be more marked. Beijing’s amoral approach to foreign policy has encouraged the proliferation of nuclear weapons to Pakistan and compelled countries like India to upturn its pro-democracy foreign policy in Burma.
Every election in a democratic country shifts its political paradigm. George Bush’s system-destructive tenure may actually be setting the stage for his successor to reconstruct the US on a new basis. That seems to be the sentiment that is propelling the once implausible candidacy of Barack Obama. The change of drivers has begun in the US, the old is virtually gone, but we do not yet know who will be the new driver, or his, or her’s, chosen direction.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Give the Bharat Ratna to the Indian Space Research Organisation
A decade or so ago, I wrote an editorial comment for a daily I used to work for. It was a call for awarding the team that developed the Polar Space Launch Vehicle the Bharat Ratna. The text-book launch of an Israeli satellite by a PSLV on Monday has only reinforced the conviction that the truly world-class Indian Space Research Organisation should be endowed with the country’s highest award.
Designing an atom bomb or a missile is small change. Both are really World War II technology. But making a sophisticated multi-stage rocket, that can inject a satellite into a precise orbit, is something else. Yet ISRO has always been under the shadow of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Department of Atomic Energy. Perhaps it has to do with the big bang, or an atavistic love of destruction their weapons can effect. Any minor milestone, even testing a surface to air missile, rates a front page mention in newspapers, yet the awesome achievements of our space scientists get short changed.
Achievement
Faced with the same kind of embargoes that have crippled our nuclear power programme, ISRO has developed a substantial space launch capability, skills in fabricating multi-purpose satellites that have contributed a great deal to the country’s well being and development. At present, Indian-made geostationary satellites provide transponders to meet the country’s needs for telecommunications, TV and radio broadcasts and weather monitoring; a constellation of remote sensing satellites provide data for mapping, agriculture and other applications. Since its orientation was self-consciously practical, it is only now taking up space faring as a serious scientific exercise, beginning with the moon mission. In fact later this year, a PSLV-XL will put in orbit the Chandrayaan, India’s first unmanned lunar probe. And all this has been achieved at investments which are laughable compared to the programmes of other countries.
You should not underrate the ISRO’s contribution to the DRDO’s missile programme either. The Agni’s core stage was the same that was used for India’s first Space Launch Vehicle. The second solid-propellant stage of India’s principal long range missile — the Agni II — was also made by ISRO. We can presume from this that their scientists played a role in developing the Agni III as well. But ISRO’s defence role is only now coming to the fore. India’s first military space craft, the Test Evaluation Satellite, was launched in 2001, and later this year, the Cartosat 2A is expected to be orbited. This satellite will provide true blue military quality imagery (resolutions less than a metre) for the armed forces. This is what makes the Israeli connection interesting. The launch of the Israeli synthetic aperture radar satellite by ISRO makes it a certainty that India will also be accessing this technology sooner, rather than later. The SAR is very useful in military terms because it can look through a cloud cover or the darkness of night. The Israeli connection has aided the country in developing better space cameras and other components as well.
As of now India’s military use of space has been for surveillance. There is still an unmet demand for dedicated communications, electronic support and navigation satellites. Global trends are moving in the direction of more intense military use of outer space. ISRO will have to take up that burden as well on behalf of the country.
Immodesty
The contrast with the DRDO and the DAE could not be greater. The latter’s certitude borders on self-defeating arrogance. As for the former, on Republic Day, it once again plans to parade its Tank EX, a supposedly next generation vehicle. I can remember the R-Day parade of 1989 or 1990, when the DRDO displayed the Arjun MBT as though it was a finished product to much applause and publicity. It was paraded again in 1997. Today it’s clear that the tank will never be finished. Short on performance, the DRDO is adept at publicity, while ISRO has consistently achieved its targets in the last three decades.
The recent publicity blitz on the anti-missile system is a case in point. An outfit that has not been able to make a surface-to-air missile which can hit aircraft flying at Mach 1 has suddenly begun to claim that it will provide a shield that will knock down missiles flying at Mach 7 or 8. The immodesty of the claims, such as its superior performance in comparison with the US Patriot Pac 3, is matched by the government’s casual approach towards the larger issues relating to the programme. Should India spend an enormous amount of money on a project that has limited chance of success? It is one thing to develop a limited missile shield against possible rogue launches, and quite another to promise a Flash Gordon type of a shield for the country’s capital. Should we abandon the keystone of our deterrence strategy — mutually assured destruction— in favour of one that creates doubts about the deterrence capabilities of our adversaries’ forces, and compels them to adopt asymmetrical technology responses? Russia, for example, is developing hybrid missiles that are part ballistic and part cruise to foil a putative American missile defence system. You can be sure China will also do so and, with its help, Pakistan.
The story of ISRO has been one of modest beginnings and hard work in the shadow of the Department of Atomic Energy which consumed much of the country’s R&D resources. But its leaders like Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan created a new system of project management by integrating the ability of the private and public sectors, universities and research institutions in a mission-oriented mode. They did not allow the development of the self-defeating “indigenous” fetish that has consumed the DAE and DRDO and impelled them to, on occasion, reinvent the wheel. Whenever required, ISRO obtained the best available technology from abroad.
Boost
The PSLV is a successor to the SLV-3 which was in turn based on technologies that came from the US and France for our sounding rocket programmes. Later the technology of the French Viking liquid propellant engine was obtained to provide for the crucial second stage of the PSLV. The Geosynchronous Space Launch Vehicle extensively uses this technology which has been indigenised as the Vikas engine. In addition it has benefited from Russian assistance in providing the third stage cryogenic motor. This year, the first indigenously developed cryogenic motor will be used for a GSLV launch.
Now that the ISRO has more than proved itself, the government needs to do its bit to ensure that the country can benefit from its achievements. First, there is need to sharply enhance the investment the country makes in the space programme. Countries like France, US, China and Japan treat their space programmes as their crown jewels, while India lavishes unrequited love on its military and nuclear programmes. Besides investment, the government needs to ensure that the personnel involved are paid much better salaries. The Israeli launch is only the beginning of a process that could see India emerge as a major commercial and military power in space. But we need even heavier launchers, more sophisticated technology and better marketing. More than that we need to recognise which parts of our government-funded science and technology systems have worked, and then promote the performers and ruthlessly dump the slackers.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 23, 2008
Designing an atom bomb or a missile is small change. Both are really World War II technology. But making a sophisticated multi-stage rocket, that can inject a satellite into a precise orbit, is something else. Yet ISRO has always been under the shadow of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Department of Atomic Energy. Perhaps it has to do with the big bang, or an atavistic love of destruction their weapons can effect. Any minor milestone, even testing a surface to air missile, rates a front page mention in newspapers, yet the awesome achievements of our space scientists get short changed.
Achievement
Faced with the same kind of embargoes that have crippled our nuclear power programme, ISRO has developed a substantial space launch capability, skills in fabricating multi-purpose satellites that have contributed a great deal to the country’s well being and development. At present, Indian-made geostationary satellites provide transponders to meet the country’s needs for telecommunications, TV and radio broadcasts and weather monitoring; a constellation of remote sensing satellites provide data for mapping, agriculture and other applications. Since its orientation was self-consciously practical, it is only now taking up space faring as a serious scientific exercise, beginning with the moon mission. In fact later this year, a PSLV-XL will put in orbit the Chandrayaan, India’s first unmanned lunar probe. And all this has been achieved at investments which are laughable compared to the programmes of other countries.
You should not underrate the ISRO’s contribution to the DRDO’s missile programme either. The Agni’s core stage was the same that was used for India’s first Space Launch Vehicle. The second solid-propellant stage of India’s principal long range missile — the Agni II — was also made by ISRO. We can presume from this that their scientists played a role in developing the Agni III as well. But ISRO’s defence role is only now coming to the fore. India’s first military space craft, the Test Evaluation Satellite, was launched in 2001, and later this year, the Cartosat 2A is expected to be orbited. This satellite will provide true blue military quality imagery (resolutions less than a metre) for the armed forces. This is what makes the Israeli connection interesting. The launch of the Israeli synthetic aperture radar satellite by ISRO makes it a certainty that India will also be accessing this technology sooner, rather than later. The SAR is very useful in military terms because it can look through a cloud cover or the darkness of night. The Israeli connection has aided the country in developing better space cameras and other components as well.
As of now India’s military use of space has been for surveillance. There is still an unmet demand for dedicated communications, electronic support and navigation satellites. Global trends are moving in the direction of more intense military use of outer space. ISRO will have to take up that burden as well on behalf of the country.
Immodesty
The contrast with the DRDO and the DAE could not be greater. The latter’s certitude borders on self-defeating arrogance. As for the former, on Republic Day, it once again plans to parade its Tank EX, a supposedly next generation vehicle. I can remember the R-Day parade of 1989 or 1990, when the DRDO displayed the Arjun MBT as though it was a finished product to much applause and publicity. It was paraded again in 1997. Today it’s clear that the tank will never be finished. Short on performance, the DRDO is adept at publicity, while ISRO has consistently achieved its targets in the last three decades.
The recent publicity blitz on the anti-missile system is a case in point. An outfit that has not been able to make a surface-to-air missile which can hit aircraft flying at Mach 1 has suddenly begun to claim that it will provide a shield that will knock down missiles flying at Mach 7 or 8. The immodesty of the claims, such as its superior performance in comparison with the US Patriot Pac 3, is matched by the government’s casual approach towards the larger issues relating to the programme. Should India spend an enormous amount of money on a project that has limited chance of success? It is one thing to develop a limited missile shield against possible rogue launches, and quite another to promise a Flash Gordon type of a shield for the country’s capital. Should we abandon the keystone of our deterrence strategy — mutually assured destruction— in favour of one that creates doubts about the deterrence capabilities of our adversaries’ forces, and compels them to adopt asymmetrical technology responses? Russia, for example, is developing hybrid missiles that are part ballistic and part cruise to foil a putative American missile defence system. You can be sure China will also do so and, with its help, Pakistan.
The story of ISRO has been one of modest beginnings and hard work in the shadow of the Department of Atomic Energy which consumed much of the country’s R&D resources. But its leaders like Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan created a new system of project management by integrating the ability of the private and public sectors, universities and research institutions in a mission-oriented mode. They did not allow the development of the self-defeating “indigenous” fetish that has consumed the DAE and DRDO and impelled them to, on occasion, reinvent the wheel. Whenever required, ISRO obtained the best available technology from abroad.
Boost
The PSLV is a successor to the SLV-3 which was in turn based on technologies that came from the US and France for our sounding rocket programmes. Later the technology of the French Viking liquid propellant engine was obtained to provide for the crucial second stage of the PSLV. The Geosynchronous Space Launch Vehicle extensively uses this technology which has been indigenised as the Vikas engine. In addition it has benefited from Russian assistance in providing the third stage cryogenic motor. This year, the first indigenously developed cryogenic motor will be used for a GSLV launch.
Now that the ISRO has more than proved itself, the government needs to do its bit to ensure that the country can benefit from its achievements. First, there is need to sharply enhance the investment the country makes in the space programme. Countries like France, US, China and Japan treat their space programmes as their crown jewels, while India lavishes unrequited love on its military and nuclear programmes. Besides investment, the government needs to ensure that the personnel involved are paid much better salaries. The Israeli launch is only the beginning of a process that could see India emerge as a major commercial and military power in space. But we need even heavier launchers, more sophisticated technology and better marketing. More than that we need to recognise which parts of our government-funded science and technology systems have worked, and then promote the performers and ruthlessly dump the slackers.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 23, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
"Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall"
Can the UPA be put together again ?
Once upon a time, six months ago to be exact, there was a government that was moving full steam ahead. The economy was flourishing, the allies quiescent, and the Opposition dead beat. The ruling party had managed to get its nominee appointed President of the Republic — a sign of its commanding position — the Sensex had breached the 15,000 mark in the space of just half a year, and India’s traditional bugbear, Pakistan, was in the midst of a deep political crisis brought on by the sacking of the Chief Justice of its Supreme Court and the Lal Masjid affair.
Then suddenly the ground started slipping. And in the space of the next six months, Humpty Dumpty was pushed off his perch, ironically by his own friends, and has come apart. Now the proverbial King’s men are exerting mightily to put him together again to fight the next general elections, but somehow the glue does not seem to stick.
War
It is not as though the warning signals were not there. The defeat in the UP assembly elections in May came despite an enormous amount of effort by the crown prince Rahul Gandhi. But the rapidity with which the whole picture changed in August and September was staggering. It began with the revolt of the CPI(M). For two years since the Indo-US nuclear deal had been announced in July 2005, the party had gone along with the government probably in the belief that the deal would not really come through. Then at the end of July it became clear that the impossible had been achieved, that the country had managed to get a generous 123 Agreement with the US. Suddenly the Left attitude changed and CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat launched a major campaign to derail not just the deal, but question the entire foreign policy track of the United Progressive Alliance.
Buoyed by its success till then, the Congress was initially inclined to fight and tell the Left where to get off. In early October, Sonia Gandhi declared that those attacking the deal were “enemies of development”. There was talk of a possible general election. And then came the craven U-turn: Sonia said her reference was specific to Haryana and Manmohan Singh declared that if the deal did not come through it would not be the end of life. The Congress’ enthusiasm to fight the Left came a cropper when close allies like M. Karunanidhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav said that they were not for elections and could even break with the UPA on the issue.
Coincidentally just as the UPA relationship was hitting the nadir, the Sangh Parivar got out of its trough. Confronted with the possibility of general elections, the RSS and BJP sorted out their differences in quick time and formally anointed L.K. Advani as the leader of the party. This came with the important electoral victory of the party in Gujarat, and then Himachal. There has been a great deal of hand-wringing and analysis over the BJP’s success and the Congress’ defeat.
Casualties
But not many have considered asking as to why the average voter in Gujarat and Himachal, even if they were no votaries of Hindutva, would have voted for the Congress. First, the advocates of anti-communal politics had muddled their message by associating with a range of BJP rebels, some who were no less communal than Narendra Modi. Second, the sight of the great anti-communal warriors fighting each other to death on the specious issue of “American imperialism”, would not have been the most reassuring for a voter.
Having humiliated the Congress, the Left could hardly expect it to look tall and fight the BJP in Gujarat. Purely coincidentally, these developments came at the very time that the Left got the worst drubbing of its recent political life on the Nandigram issue where, among others, it confronted the Jamiat-ul-ulema-e-Hind, the powerful organisation of Muslim clerics.
So here we are at the beginning of 2008, surveying the ruins of a once proud alliance and wondering whether it can be put together again. With elections just a year or so away, the Congress and its allies, which includes the Left, must ask the question: Just what have they achieved in the past three years? On what basis should the people vote for them the next time around?
True, the UPA has given us a stable government whose record is not marred by a Gujarat-type pogrom; its competent handling of foreign relations has enhanced India’s standing in the world. But economic growth has come on its own, or at least, without any significant government intervention, and despite the best efforts of the Left to sabotage it. Let’s not tarry on the still cooking nuclear deal. What about the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme? According to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, it is not working. The government has hardly shown itself as an exceptional protector of the country, or a fighter against communal violence.
This is not to say that the condition of the other parties is any better. The coming year will see a bonfire of the vanities of other political formations as well. The BJP may send out its new poster-boy Narendra Modi to sup with Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, but it remains to be seen whether he gets the same kind of reception with Chandrababu Naidu or Nitish Kumar. Nandigram has yet to play itself out, not so much in terms of Mamta Banerji’s antics, but the alienation of the Muslim community from the Left.
Both the Congress and the BJP have been out of the Uttar Pradesh playing field and they don’t know how to get back on. The Congress’ chosen method is throwing sops that elude the targets and land up in the pockets of middle-men; as for the BJP, it is whistling in the dark hoping that Sethusamudram will do for them what the Ram Mandir did not. Turning up the communal temperature by using terrorism as the issue remains its most visible option.
Choice
Almost all political formations, barring Mayawati, want elections to take place at their assigned time in the first half of 2009. But that may not be possible. After its political mugging by the Left, the UPA does not look like it has the stamina to carry on for another year. If it does try, it could make the situation worse for itself. So, patchwork solutions are being attempted. In the coming weeks the Congress and the Left will try to pretend that their no-holds-barred battle never happened. Pranab Mukherjee’s declaration that the Congress would itself not like to proceed with a deal minus the Left’s support could be the beginning of an effort to revive the coalition. The effort would be to forget the August-December 2007 period.
There are straws in the wind to suggest that the Congress will again surprise the Left with a draft IAEA safeguards agreement that meets their somewhat extravagant demands. The Left will have the opportunity to reconsider. In the meantime, Mr. Karat may speak of the new Third Front and the Congress may dream of a modified UPA with Mulayam Singh, but time is not on their side.
As they confront the next general election, the future course of our political parties will be shaped by habit and vanities, rather than any deterministic unfolding of events. Choices exercised now could still make a difference, but just about.
This article was published in Mail Today January 16, 2008
Once upon a time, six months ago to be exact, there was a government that was moving full steam ahead. The economy was flourishing, the allies quiescent, and the Opposition dead beat. The ruling party had managed to get its nominee appointed President of the Republic — a sign of its commanding position — the Sensex had breached the 15,000 mark in the space of just half a year, and India’s traditional bugbear, Pakistan, was in the midst of a deep political crisis brought on by the sacking of the Chief Justice of its Supreme Court and the Lal Masjid affair.
Then suddenly the ground started slipping. And in the space of the next six months, Humpty Dumpty was pushed off his perch, ironically by his own friends, and has come apart. Now the proverbial King’s men are exerting mightily to put him together again to fight the next general elections, but somehow the glue does not seem to stick.
War
It is not as though the warning signals were not there. The defeat in the UP assembly elections in May came despite an enormous amount of effort by the crown prince Rahul Gandhi. But the rapidity with which the whole picture changed in August and September was staggering. It began with the revolt of the CPI(M). For two years since the Indo-US nuclear deal had been announced in July 2005, the party had gone along with the government probably in the belief that the deal would not really come through. Then at the end of July it became clear that the impossible had been achieved, that the country had managed to get a generous 123 Agreement with the US. Suddenly the Left attitude changed and CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat launched a major campaign to derail not just the deal, but question the entire foreign policy track of the United Progressive Alliance.
Buoyed by its success till then, the Congress was initially inclined to fight and tell the Left where to get off. In early October, Sonia Gandhi declared that those attacking the deal were “enemies of development”. There was talk of a possible general election. And then came the craven U-turn: Sonia said her reference was specific to Haryana and Manmohan Singh declared that if the deal did not come through it would not be the end of life. The Congress’ enthusiasm to fight the Left came a cropper when close allies like M. Karunanidhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav said that they were not for elections and could even break with the UPA on the issue.
Coincidentally just as the UPA relationship was hitting the nadir, the Sangh Parivar got out of its trough. Confronted with the possibility of general elections, the RSS and BJP sorted out their differences in quick time and formally anointed L.K. Advani as the leader of the party. This came with the important electoral victory of the party in Gujarat, and then Himachal. There has been a great deal of hand-wringing and analysis over the BJP’s success and the Congress’ defeat.
Casualties
But not many have considered asking as to why the average voter in Gujarat and Himachal, even if they were no votaries of Hindutva, would have voted for the Congress. First, the advocates of anti-communal politics had muddled their message by associating with a range of BJP rebels, some who were no less communal than Narendra Modi. Second, the sight of the great anti-communal warriors fighting each other to death on the specious issue of “American imperialism”, would not have been the most reassuring for a voter.
Having humiliated the Congress, the Left could hardly expect it to look tall and fight the BJP in Gujarat. Purely coincidentally, these developments came at the very time that the Left got the worst drubbing of its recent political life on the Nandigram issue where, among others, it confronted the Jamiat-ul-ulema-e-Hind, the powerful organisation of Muslim clerics.
So here we are at the beginning of 2008, surveying the ruins of a once proud alliance and wondering whether it can be put together again. With elections just a year or so away, the Congress and its allies, which includes the Left, must ask the question: Just what have they achieved in the past three years? On what basis should the people vote for them the next time around?
True, the UPA has given us a stable government whose record is not marred by a Gujarat-type pogrom; its competent handling of foreign relations has enhanced India’s standing in the world. But economic growth has come on its own, or at least, without any significant government intervention, and despite the best efforts of the Left to sabotage it. Let’s not tarry on the still cooking nuclear deal. What about the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme? According to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, it is not working. The government has hardly shown itself as an exceptional protector of the country, or a fighter against communal violence.
This is not to say that the condition of the other parties is any better. The coming year will see a bonfire of the vanities of other political formations as well. The BJP may send out its new poster-boy Narendra Modi to sup with Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, but it remains to be seen whether he gets the same kind of reception with Chandrababu Naidu or Nitish Kumar. Nandigram has yet to play itself out, not so much in terms of Mamta Banerji’s antics, but the alienation of the Muslim community from the Left.
Both the Congress and the BJP have been out of the Uttar Pradesh playing field and they don’t know how to get back on. The Congress’ chosen method is throwing sops that elude the targets and land up in the pockets of middle-men; as for the BJP, it is whistling in the dark hoping that Sethusamudram will do for them what the Ram Mandir did not. Turning up the communal temperature by using terrorism as the issue remains its most visible option.
Choice
Almost all political formations, barring Mayawati, want elections to take place at their assigned time in the first half of 2009. But that may not be possible. After its political mugging by the Left, the UPA does not look like it has the stamina to carry on for another year. If it does try, it could make the situation worse for itself. So, patchwork solutions are being attempted. In the coming weeks the Congress and the Left will try to pretend that their no-holds-barred battle never happened. Pranab Mukherjee’s declaration that the Congress would itself not like to proceed with a deal minus the Left’s support could be the beginning of an effort to revive the coalition. The effort would be to forget the August-December 2007 period.
There are straws in the wind to suggest that the Congress will again surprise the Left with a draft IAEA safeguards agreement that meets their somewhat extravagant demands. The Left will have the opportunity to reconsider. In the meantime, Mr. Karat may speak of the new Third Front and the Congress may dream of a modified UPA with Mulayam Singh, but time is not on their side.
As they confront the next general election, the future course of our political parties will be shaped by habit and vanities, rather than any deterministic unfolding of events. Choices exercised now could still make a difference, but just about.
This article was published in Mail Today January 16, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The Chinese are not ten feet tall
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first visit to China comes amidst a welter of scare stories about Chinese “incursions” into Indian territory and how its rapidly developing infrastructure in Tibet poses a threat to India. But there is another, more astonishing side which scarcely makes it to the headlines: Sino-Indian trade that totaled $5 billion in 2003, has touched $34 billion (January-November 2007).
This could not have come without the development of another relationship, not across the inhospitable Himalayan border, but the seas, between Indian and Chinese enterprises, entrepreneurs and managers. Since the 2003 visit of Prime Minister Vajpayee to Beijing, the bandwidth of Sino-Indian relations has broadened and, to change metaphors, while it is possible to see them as a glass half empty, it would be more correct to view it as one half full.
Border
Blaming the Chinese for doing something we have fallen behind on — building roads and investing in communications and other services in the difficult mountain regions — is, to say the least, perverse. India has had similar plans on the books since the mid-1960s, but most are decades behind in implementation. The Chinese rightly saw their Tibet railway as a prestige project and completed it ahead of schedule; India’s Kashmir rail project, is probably a decade from completion.
As for the incursions, the issue is more complex. Indo Tibetan Border Police chief V.K. Joshi said in October that the Chinese had made some 140 incursions into Indian territory all across the Indo-Tibet border, but none were serious. “Their perception of the Line of [Actual] Control could be different from ours...,” was his simple and straightforward explanation. The 4056-km India-Tibet border is not an international border in the legal sense. It is a Line of Actual Control which is itself not clearly defined, unlike, say, the Line of Control with Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir. Its ambiguity is best brought out by the Chinese formulation that in the east it “approximates the illegal McMahon Line” but it is not the line, as defined by the 1914 treaty. There are also important differences in the Sikkim-Bhutan-India trijunction.
In the west the situation has been much more fluid. The Chinese themselves have presented various versions of the LAC. One was affirmed as the “correct” line in December 1959, there was another put forward in 1960, and finally there were the positions that the Chinese occupied during the October-November 1962 border war; at each stage occupying more and more of territory that India claimed as its own.
The border is important. As long as it is not settled, it can be used to quickly ratchet up tension. There is a certain symmetry in Indian and Chinese claims which could aid its settlement. The Chinese hold what they claim in the western sector, India holds what it claims in the eastern sector. Both contest what the other side holds — New Delhi says China’s control of Aksai Chin is illegal and Beijing disputes India’s control of what is now Arunachal Pradesh. A dispassionate look at history will show that both established control over the disputed territories they hold in the 1950s. Major R ‘Bob’ Khating took control of Tawang, the most significant town in the North East Frontier Agency, in February 1951; the Chinese, too, began building their road and consolidating their hold over Aksai Chin in this period.
The 2005 agreement on political parameters and guiding principles for the India-China boundary question has outlined the only basis on which the two countries can resolve their dispute — on a largely “as is where is” basis. Yet, movement is painfully slow. There was a time in 2003 when there were expectations that there would be quick movement. That was the time when the Vajpayee government expected it would be voted back to power. Since then, though there is agreement on the principles, there has been no significant movement. The reason seems to be that the Chinese are not sure whether this is the moment to settle.
Power
So, they have raised the issue of the Tawang tract. In May 2007 Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi told his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee at a meeting in Hamburg that the presence of settled populations in regions under dispute would not affect China’s claims on those regions. Yang’s statement appears to undermine the crucial Article VII of the guiding principles that says: “In reaching a boundary settlement, the two sides shall safeguard settled populations in border areas.”
Relations between India and China would have been complex even if there had been no border dispute. But to see the Chinese as being aggressive, or hell-bent on domination, is to court enmity, a luxury that India cannot afford. Both countries have known strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis each other. If China has the advantage of easier lines of communication on the Tibetan plateau, the region is also thousands of kilometres away from its core territory, as compared to a couple of hundred on the Indian side. The Chinese have never quite gained the loyalty of the Tibetans and worry about the impact of the Dalai Lama and the exiles in India. But India also knows that it suffers from a strategic disadvantage since the Indian heartland is so close to Chinese air and missile power in Tibet.
But this military talk is itself archaic. In 1962, the hapless Indian brigade ordered to capture Thag La had no idea what lay behind the ridge. Today Lhasa is open to Indian tourists and richer pilgrims en route to Mansarover. The Nathu La route has been opened up and traders travel all the way to Lhasa. In addition electronic and photo reconnaissance provides India a detailed picture of the PLA deployments. A Chinese surprise attack is simply out of the question. Indian military strength is substantial and it possesses the means of nuclear reprisal.
Change
So the Chinese “threat” has migrated to Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and various Indian neighbours. But, here, too, there is a tendency to overstate Chinese strengths and understate its weaknesses. A look at the map will reveal that almost all of Beijing’s oil supplies have to pass through India’s territorial waters, a jugular if ever there was one. Geography ensures that China can never be a threat to India in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean region, in the same measure that India cannot really threaten China in the South China Sea. So there is no real basis of confrontation at the maritime level either. Actually, given their internal demands, what both need and seek is stability, not just regional, but global.
China has in the past, and continues at present, to play an irresponsible role in aiding Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programme and its actions have harmed Indian security immeasurably. But the same could be said of our history with our new friend, the US. History, in any case, should not determine future policy. It can provide a perspective, but should not hold a veto.
Anyway, in the Sino-Indian context, a great deal of what the future holds will be determined in Beijing, rather than in New Delhi. The very dynamism of its economy is bringing it to the point where it cannot postpone political reform for much longer. Such a development could have a wide-ranging impact on China’s internal relations with regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as its neighbours like India. Our task is to stay the course and offer China a relationship of friendship and cooperation, without being deferential or defensive on any issue.
The article was published in Mail Today January 9, 2008
This could not have come without the development of another relationship, not across the inhospitable Himalayan border, but the seas, between Indian and Chinese enterprises, entrepreneurs and managers. Since the 2003 visit of Prime Minister Vajpayee to Beijing, the bandwidth of Sino-Indian relations has broadened and, to change metaphors, while it is possible to see them as a glass half empty, it would be more correct to view it as one half full.
Border
Blaming the Chinese for doing something we have fallen behind on — building roads and investing in communications and other services in the difficult mountain regions — is, to say the least, perverse. India has had similar plans on the books since the mid-1960s, but most are decades behind in implementation. The Chinese rightly saw their Tibet railway as a prestige project and completed it ahead of schedule; India’s Kashmir rail project, is probably a decade from completion.
As for the incursions, the issue is more complex. Indo Tibetan Border Police chief V.K. Joshi said in October that the Chinese had made some 140 incursions into Indian territory all across the Indo-Tibet border, but none were serious. “Their perception of the Line of [Actual] Control could be different from ours...,” was his simple and straightforward explanation. The 4056-km India-Tibet border is not an international border in the legal sense. It is a Line of Actual Control which is itself not clearly defined, unlike, say, the Line of Control with Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir. Its ambiguity is best brought out by the Chinese formulation that in the east it “approximates the illegal McMahon Line” but it is not the line, as defined by the 1914 treaty. There are also important differences in the Sikkim-Bhutan-India trijunction.
In the west the situation has been much more fluid. The Chinese themselves have presented various versions of the LAC. One was affirmed as the “correct” line in December 1959, there was another put forward in 1960, and finally there were the positions that the Chinese occupied during the October-November 1962 border war; at each stage occupying more and more of territory that India claimed as its own.
The border is important. As long as it is not settled, it can be used to quickly ratchet up tension. There is a certain symmetry in Indian and Chinese claims which could aid its settlement. The Chinese hold what they claim in the western sector, India holds what it claims in the eastern sector. Both contest what the other side holds — New Delhi says China’s control of Aksai Chin is illegal and Beijing disputes India’s control of what is now Arunachal Pradesh. A dispassionate look at history will show that both established control over the disputed territories they hold in the 1950s. Major R ‘Bob’ Khating took control of Tawang, the most significant town in the North East Frontier Agency, in February 1951; the Chinese, too, began building their road and consolidating their hold over Aksai Chin in this period.
The 2005 agreement on political parameters and guiding principles for the India-China boundary question has outlined the only basis on which the two countries can resolve their dispute — on a largely “as is where is” basis. Yet, movement is painfully slow. There was a time in 2003 when there were expectations that there would be quick movement. That was the time when the Vajpayee government expected it would be voted back to power. Since then, though there is agreement on the principles, there has been no significant movement. The reason seems to be that the Chinese are not sure whether this is the moment to settle.
Power
So, they have raised the issue of the Tawang tract. In May 2007 Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi told his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee at a meeting in Hamburg that the presence of settled populations in regions under dispute would not affect China’s claims on those regions. Yang’s statement appears to undermine the crucial Article VII of the guiding principles that says: “In reaching a boundary settlement, the two sides shall safeguard settled populations in border areas.”
Relations between India and China would have been complex even if there had been no border dispute. But to see the Chinese as being aggressive, or hell-bent on domination, is to court enmity, a luxury that India cannot afford. Both countries have known strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis each other. If China has the advantage of easier lines of communication on the Tibetan plateau, the region is also thousands of kilometres away from its core territory, as compared to a couple of hundred on the Indian side. The Chinese have never quite gained the loyalty of the Tibetans and worry about the impact of the Dalai Lama and the exiles in India. But India also knows that it suffers from a strategic disadvantage since the Indian heartland is so close to Chinese air and missile power in Tibet.
But this military talk is itself archaic. In 1962, the hapless Indian brigade ordered to capture Thag La had no idea what lay behind the ridge. Today Lhasa is open to Indian tourists and richer pilgrims en route to Mansarover. The Nathu La route has been opened up and traders travel all the way to Lhasa. In addition electronic and photo reconnaissance provides India a detailed picture of the PLA deployments. A Chinese surprise attack is simply out of the question. Indian military strength is substantial and it possesses the means of nuclear reprisal.
Change
So the Chinese “threat” has migrated to Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and various Indian neighbours. But, here, too, there is a tendency to overstate Chinese strengths and understate its weaknesses. A look at the map will reveal that almost all of Beijing’s oil supplies have to pass through India’s territorial waters, a jugular if ever there was one. Geography ensures that China can never be a threat to India in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean region, in the same measure that India cannot really threaten China in the South China Sea. So there is no real basis of confrontation at the maritime level either. Actually, given their internal demands, what both need and seek is stability, not just regional, but global.
China has in the past, and continues at present, to play an irresponsible role in aiding Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programme and its actions have harmed Indian security immeasurably. But the same could be said of our history with our new friend, the US. History, in any case, should not determine future policy. It can provide a perspective, but should not hold a veto.
Anyway, in the Sino-Indian context, a great deal of what the future holds will be determined in Beijing, rather than in New Delhi. The very dynamism of its economy is bringing it to the point where it cannot postpone political reform for much longer. Such a development could have a wide-ranging impact on China’s internal relations with regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as its neighbours like India. Our task is to stay the course and offer China a relationship of friendship and cooperation, without being deferential or defensive on any issue.
The article was published in Mail Today January 9, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
2008 Could Be the Year of the Suicide Bomber in India
For the past twenty five years, almost as if in keeping with our millennia old history, India’s major security threat has come from the north-west. We are not talking about the Pakistan armed forces, which are a given, in the India-Pakistan context. The problem has seen the Pakistan army’s proxy war against India using a powerful mix of religious fanaticism and simpler incentives like money. We have dealt with successive waves of terrorists, each with more skills than the previous. We may now be standing at the cusp of an even more terrible future. The coming year could see India confronted with suicide bombers.
The attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur is only a warning of things to come. It points to the depth of the roots that the jehadis have been able to establish in India’s Muslim population. Till now, cells with extensions reaching out to Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh have conducted strikes using improvised explosive devices. Launching an attack on an armed police camp would have involved much more sophisticated planning and logistics—identifying and checking out the target, sheltering the attackers, providing the weapons and conveying them to the launch site.
History
While suicide attacks have a history going back to the first century AD, modern suicide terrorism began on October 23, 1983 when two massive explosions destroyed the barracks of the American and French contingents of a peace keeping force in Beirut. Both attacks were carried out by Hizbollah members who drove trucks loaded with explosives into the compound before setting off the bombs and killing themselves as well. Though this tactic was thereafter employed against US and Israeli targets in the region, it was not a “Muslim” thing. Between 1980-2000, the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched as many as 168 suicide strikes in India and Sri Lanka. The Hizbollah actually were a distinct number two with 52 attacks, with the Kurdistan Workers Party at number three with 15 attacks. The Palestinian groups—the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas— used the weapon sparingly at the time. .
Another watershed was Nine- Eleven, itself the most devastating suicide attack till now. About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In Afghanistan, too, the suicide bombings have come in the wake of the Iraq experience, with the first attack directed against German forces in June 2003.
The first suicide attack in Pakistan took place when, in 1995, an Egyptian bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into his country’s embassy in Islamabad. In the following years, such attacks were few and far between, though always deadly when they occurred. In 2007 the number of attacks went up sharply to an estimated 65 attacks that have taken the lives of nearly 1000 people.
Psychology
These are not the suicide terrorism of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, born out of a sense of helplessness in front of relentless Israeli power. This is a weapon of choice, used well before the others are even employed. But unlike the inanimate gun or lump of explosive, this weapon has to be shaped with great care. But once you have the methodology, you can mass-produce it. Many of the Pakistani bombers are unemployed, illiterate, and poor. They are easy prey to their “handlers” who convince them that not only are such attacks religiously sanctioned, but that in carrying them out, they will be fighting the kafirs of the west who are killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. According to reports in Pakistan, about a dozen master handlers or motivators have emerged in the NWFP to train people identify and train people to carry out such attacks. Many of these are local imams or madarsah teachers who should know that suicide does not have any sanction in Islam. But the people they are targeting are either semi-literate, or young and impressionable. These “handlers” are proficient in human psychology and will use emotional crises, such as the death of a near and dear, to push a potential recruit to make a commitment to the “cause.” Once identified, the recruit is isolated and provided “spiritual training” to make him feel that he is one of the chosen. Once the person is fully brainwashed, he may be assigned any task—driving a truck bomb at an army convoy, blowing himself up to kill a target, launch fedayeen attack on police or army checkposts.
Suicide attacks are an attractive tactic for terrorist groups. That the attacker is expected to die ensures that he or she is not captured, tortured and made to disclose the larger conspiracy. It also minimizes the effort the group needs to put in to plan the getaway of an attacker.
So far, only Israel has been able to reduce the number of suicide attacks. They have done this by ensuring physical separation of the Palestinian and Israeli populations and harsh measures such as destroying the houses of people involved in such attacks. In a multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracy like India such tactics will not be either feasible or desirable. But these need not be the only tactics. Suicide terrorism can be challenged by disrupting its organisational chain—the recruiters, handlers, bomb-makers, the safe-houses. In addition, there is need to make police and security personnel across the country aware of the need to build their camps and establishments with the presumption that they, too, could be targeted.
In the past few years, attacks in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi and elsewhere have shown that terrorist cells have struck local roots. Terrorist strategy run by faceless leaders and organizers has become much more sophisticated. Because terror strikes are followed by often mindless repression, gross violation of the rule of law and due process, an army of new recruits is always available.
Unfortunately, India’s battle is being fought tactically, rather than in pursuit of an established strategy. The country’s security forces have won many tactical engagements. But, as Sun Tzu famously said, “Tactics without strategy, is the noise before defeat.” Insulated in their security cocoons the political and bureaucratic establishment do not realize that their tactical war against terrorism is merely pushing terrorists towards an escalating cycle of attacks.
Strategy
So what is the strategy that we must follow ? Clearly it must be a mix of the political, economic and social. But most important, it requires consensus between those like the BJP which believes that only harsh repression will yield results and others, including many in the Congress who feel that unless the root causes of poverty and alienation of the minority community are addressed, nothing will change. Both the Congress and the BJP have in the past contributed to the climate in which terrorism is flourishing by ignoring issues like the 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi, the Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 Gujarat killings. Good strategy requires an acknowledgment, even an implicit one, that this is a problem. Only then can the mainstream parties work out a set of consensual policies which may range from measures for the uplift of poor Muslims, more effective legislation to tackle terrorism, as well as the creation of a federal instrumentality to combat it.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 2, 2008
The attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur is only a warning of things to come. It points to the depth of the roots that the jehadis have been able to establish in India’s Muslim population. Till now, cells with extensions reaching out to Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh have conducted strikes using improvised explosive devices. Launching an attack on an armed police camp would have involved much more sophisticated planning and logistics—identifying and checking out the target, sheltering the attackers, providing the weapons and conveying them to the launch site.
History
While suicide attacks have a history going back to the first century AD, modern suicide terrorism began on October 23, 1983 when two massive explosions destroyed the barracks of the American and French contingents of a peace keeping force in Beirut. Both attacks were carried out by Hizbollah members who drove trucks loaded with explosives into the compound before setting off the bombs and killing themselves as well. Though this tactic was thereafter employed against US and Israeli targets in the region, it was not a “Muslim” thing. Between 1980-2000, the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched as many as 168 suicide strikes in India and Sri Lanka. The Hizbollah actually were a distinct number two with 52 attacks, with the Kurdistan Workers Party at number three with 15 attacks. The Palestinian groups—the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas— used the weapon sparingly at the time. .
Another watershed was Nine- Eleven, itself the most devastating suicide attack till now. About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In Afghanistan, too, the suicide bombings have come in the wake of the Iraq experience, with the first attack directed against German forces in June 2003.
The first suicide attack in Pakistan took place when, in 1995, an Egyptian bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into his country’s embassy in Islamabad. In the following years, such attacks were few and far between, though always deadly when they occurred. In 2007 the number of attacks went up sharply to an estimated 65 attacks that have taken the lives of nearly 1000 people.
Psychology
These are not the suicide terrorism of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, born out of a sense of helplessness in front of relentless Israeli power. This is a weapon of choice, used well before the others are even employed. But unlike the inanimate gun or lump of explosive, this weapon has to be shaped with great care. But once you have the methodology, you can mass-produce it. Many of the Pakistani bombers are unemployed, illiterate, and poor. They are easy prey to their “handlers” who convince them that not only are such attacks religiously sanctioned, but that in carrying them out, they will be fighting the kafirs of the west who are killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. According to reports in Pakistan, about a dozen master handlers or motivators have emerged in the NWFP to train people identify and train people to carry out such attacks. Many of these are local imams or madarsah teachers who should know that suicide does not have any sanction in Islam. But the people they are targeting are either semi-literate, or young and impressionable. These “handlers” are proficient in human psychology and will use emotional crises, such as the death of a near and dear, to push a potential recruit to make a commitment to the “cause.” Once identified, the recruit is isolated and provided “spiritual training” to make him feel that he is one of the chosen. Once the person is fully brainwashed, he may be assigned any task—driving a truck bomb at an army convoy, blowing himself up to kill a target, launch fedayeen attack on police or army checkposts.
Suicide attacks are an attractive tactic for terrorist groups. That the attacker is expected to die ensures that he or she is not captured, tortured and made to disclose the larger conspiracy. It also minimizes the effort the group needs to put in to plan the getaway of an attacker.
So far, only Israel has been able to reduce the number of suicide attacks. They have done this by ensuring physical separation of the Palestinian and Israeli populations and harsh measures such as destroying the houses of people involved in such attacks. In a multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracy like India such tactics will not be either feasible or desirable. But these need not be the only tactics. Suicide terrorism can be challenged by disrupting its organisational chain—the recruiters, handlers, bomb-makers, the safe-houses. In addition, there is need to make police and security personnel across the country aware of the need to build their camps and establishments with the presumption that they, too, could be targeted.
In the past few years, attacks in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi and elsewhere have shown that terrorist cells have struck local roots. Terrorist strategy run by faceless leaders and organizers has become much more sophisticated. Because terror strikes are followed by often mindless repression, gross violation of the rule of law and due process, an army of new recruits is always available.
Unfortunately, India’s battle is being fought tactically, rather than in pursuit of an established strategy. The country’s security forces have won many tactical engagements. But, as Sun Tzu famously said, “Tactics without strategy, is the noise before defeat.” Insulated in their security cocoons the political and bureaucratic establishment do not realize that their tactical war against terrorism is merely pushing terrorists towards an escalating cycle of attacks.
Strategy
So what is the strategy that we must follow ? Clearly it must be a mix of the political, economic and social. But most important, it requires consensus between those like the BJP which believes that only harsh repression will yield results and others, including many in the Congress who feel that unless the root causes of poverty and alienation of the minority community are addressed, nothing will change. Both the Congress and the BJP have in the past contributed to the climate in which terrorism is flourishing by ignoring issues like the 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi, the Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 Gujarat killings. Good strategy requires an acknowledgment, even an implicit one, that this is a problem. Only then can the mainstream parties work out a set of consensual policies which may range from measures for the uplift of poor Muslims, more effective legislation to tackle terrorism, as well as the creation of a federal instrumentality to combat it.
This article appeared in Mail Today January 2, 2008
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